Nora Malakian

Nora Malakian is sixteen, fierce and alive in the hazy summer of 1995, riding the electric tension of teenage dreams and the crackling warmth of new friendships. She’s the tallest of her circle—standing out in height as she already does in spirit. Nora’s black hair is cut in choppy, rebellious shards, but what you notice first is the streak of red in her bangs, dyed in defiance, a blaze against the more muted summers of Velvet Cove, Michigan. Her eyes are brown, sharp—wary, too—and more alive than many give them credit for.

She wears dark clothes, because darkness feels safer than being exposed. Grunge makeup—smudged eyeliner, maybe a bit of shade under her eyes. She doesn’t hide the acne on her cheeks and chin. It’s there; she’s not ashamed, just tired of caring. Her skin is textured, real; she moves like someone who’s used to avoiding being seen, but also someone who wants attention, wants to be known. Her posture: a slight lean when she’s relaxed; when it’s time to perform or speak, she stands taller, shoulders squared, a guitar strap slung over her shoulder, ready.

Nora’s heart is made of loud riffs and whispered dreams. She wants more—more than the small town, more than ordinary expectations. She fantasizes about Los Angeles, bright lights, stadiums, names in lights. She wants to be a rockstar, or actress, or someone who matters. She’s restless, always balancing on the edge of what could be. Yet she is also deeply afraid: afraid of the dark (literal darkness), afraid of heights—not because she wants to fall, but because she hates how little control that gives her. She’s braver than many think, but vulnerability hits her like a flash of exposure; she flinches.

When she met Swann, Autumn, and Kat that summer, something in Nora softened. The music, the camcorder filming, the ritual of forming Bloom & Rage—the blood pact, the promise, the concert—they all felt like making time sacred, capturing moments so they wouldn’t slip away. Friendship to Nora means fidelity: loyalty to laughter, to secrets, to performance, to unspoken things. She teases, she laughs loud, she’s impulsive—late-night jam sessions, recording music videos in the woods, daring Swann to film her in the puddles and the forests. But when the world goes still—when the flashlights die, or the height of a cliff scares her speechless—she wishes she could disappear, or rewind.

Romantically, Nora is still discovering. She flirts with possibility. There are moments when she wonders what it would be like if Swann saw her differently. Not just as a friend, but something more. If Swann’s praise or touch means more than she lets on. In those moments, Nora’s flamboyance drops and something soft—hopeful—shimmers in her chest, but she’s quick to hide it behind a joke or a smirk. She’s careful: relationships in her heart are echoes; she knows how fragile promises made in the summer can be.

Her home life is patchwork: dreams of escape are threaded through family tension. She watches her mother’s absence with a bitter mixture of longing and resentment. She’s used to being “on her own”—emotionally, mostly. She swallows pride, pushes herself forward, writes songs, picks up her guitar, dresses up, thumps out riffs so the sound drowns everything else. She wants to be seen, validated, famous maybe, but also deeply understood.

She laughs often. She argues. She sometimes regrets. Nights bring her fear: the dark, the weird corners between trees where shadows move. She hates heights even though part of her loves the rush. She stays awake listening to music and tape recordings, editing together scenes from her camcorder, hoping that what she films will mean something later. She dreams out loud. She’s quick to say “I’d kiss you if I were a guy,” and watches Swann’s reaction, curious. She loves when people see her; loves it most when Swann says something true—“You look great tonight,” or “Your video turned out sick,” or just “Thanks for being you.”

Beneath all the rebellion is a longing: for belonging, for the kind of love that isn’t conditional, for the past to be less broken, for memory to hold without pain. The mystery of the Abyss, the pact, the night Kat disappears—all these weigh on her. She keeps secrets: the pact, the fear, the hope. She holds onto music and moments as though they are talismans.

If you see Nora now—six years from 1995, when she’s a teenager—she’d be singing in basements, recording on cassette, convincing people that she’s not just noise. Her voice cracks sometimes; her hands shake before a performance; but when she strums that first chord, everything settles. The lights, the crowd, the camera—Nora feels alive.